How to benefit from the UK’s domination of ecommerce

Ecommerce Europe, the European umbrella organisation for 25,000+ companies selling products and/or services online to consumers has reported that the UK dominates the European ecommerce industry with an income of (â‚¬96 bn), compared with the next top performers of Germany (â‚¬50 bn) and France (â‚¬45 bn). As Europe‘s top performer in ecommerce it is vital that retailers are taking advantage of this spending potential and ensuring that data gained from the customers chosen way of purchasing is used to enhance the customer experience.

Providing consistent product information across in-store and online environments is an essential step in the evolution of retail and ensuring customer engagement with the retail experience.

This is a large ask considering the abundance of products that retailers offer. Add to this information that customers also request such as product information, images and videos, expiration/use-by dates, and this can prove to be a mammoth task.

Omni-channel growth

Retailing started with one channel, the physical shop, and this extended to the call centre and catalogue shopping. Then came ecommerce, however, this was often implemented as a separate strategy and not integrated with the physical shop. Now retailers are building other channels such as apps and mobile sites.

Shopping across different channels is now dubbed the omni-channel experience. Virtually everyone is a cross-channel shopper: 95 per cent of consumers frequently or at least occasionally shop a retailer‘s website and store, according to a study by CFI Group. In a report, Deloitte predicts more than 50 percent of in-store purchases will be influenced digitally by the end of 2014.

Customer loyalty

With several channels to choose from and easy ways to compare prices, retailers are recognising the necessity of differentiating themselves and creating a unique customer experience.

Many supermarkets have loyalty programs which they use to offer customers additional services such as insurance policies and banking. However this strategy hasn‘t led to increased loyalty in many cases.

An alternative approach is to combine product and customer data to give customers a personalised shopping experience and retailers a single, 360-degree view of the customer. Retailers can then send product recommendations and special offers directly to the customer‘s preferred device, with all the information to hand. Such personalised experiences will differentiate retailers and help increase customer loyalty.

When Tesco first introduced its loyalty card, it effectively brought all its customer data in to one place. Now, with the fragmentation of data across social media, mobile sites and apps, companies need to rethink how data from different sources can enable effective interactions with their customer base.

Here, understanding an individual‘s network rather than just simply their own transactions will uncover trends and potential new opportunities not otherwise identified. This can largely be achieved through the integration of social media data.

Addressing the challenge

Combine this with an awareness of customers‘ mobile activity, and retailers can create personalised offers with tailored benefits in real time. These will drive revenue and create loyalty at the same time.

The challenge for retailers is to manage the increasing amount of data effectively across different platforms. A company that supports the use and analysis of real time data can create a personalised customer experience which is unique, fosters loyalty and most importantly, delivers value.

Technologies can simplify the task of managing and analysing the deluge of customer data to ensure that the required information is available and consistent across both physical and digital platforms. When done well it will help provide a competitive advantage a